Hoi An, Vietnam Shopping (with prices)
Hoi An is a resort town. Like resort towns elsewhere in the world, it comes with resort prices.
Why is Hoi An known for custom clothing and shoes?
Hoi An’s history involves trade. There are a lot of rivers here and the silk routes (1st-15th. centuries) went through here as well as other types of trade. So some of the fabric production and business that go with it have lasted from the 15th century until now. Hoi An’s status as a UNESCO World Heritage site have also helped preserve various crafts including clothing.
TLDR: you will probably like the tailor-made options here if you 1) hate shopping 2) know what you want and it’s not an unusual fabric 3) do not fit in clothes off the rack and/or 4) think any of the following are prices worth jumping on: $200 suit, $30 silk pants, $120 silk 3/4 length coat, $50 leather sneakers. If this is you, come to Hoi An with pictures of what you want and a clear idea of what you would pay where you live so you know your limits for bargaining. Another bonus for getting a suit made here: if you need another one in the future, they will have your measurements already and be able to make one long distance.
SUIT PRICES: starting quote $60 from the cheaper stores (like fabric mart or those away from the center or not as big and flashy). Starting quote “$105-$125 or $200 depending upon fabric” from Yaly. $90-120 for cashmere at Ba Ri (30 Lê Lợi, Phường Minh An, Hội An, Quảng Nam, Vietnam). Be Be was the most specific: $180 cashmere, $220 wool, $280 merino wool. They also had a fluent English speaker come over to give us the pitch “we are not the cheapest but we have the best quality. . .” These are starting prices. If a suit is your goal, hopefully these numbers can help you get the best price regardless of who you decide to have make it. You can also visit stores online, like A-Dong Silk, for an idea about prices. Online, you can see what they will charge you for a long-distance suit and know that in person you should be able to get cheaper with bargaining.
SHIRT PRICES: starting quote $20 for cotton men’s long-sleeved shirt
Silk PJs: quoted 800K dong from a seller in the Fabric Market (21 Hoàng Diệu, Cẩm Châu, Hội An, Quảng Nam, Vietnam).
Leather Sneakers: $50 starting price. Any leather color you want.
Note that Hoi An tailors seem to quote in US dollars more than local currency. This is another sign that what they are after is slightly below market prices for Westerners, as opposed to local prices.
WHY WE DIDN’T GET ANY CLOTHES MADE
Hurdle #1: We don’t need anything
Neither of us work or go to fancy parties anymore. We don’t need suits. I’d like a 3/4 length coat and matching pants, perhaps of linen or silk. But the starting price for such a coat is $120, and that’s steep for me for something I don’t need.
Hurdle #2: Design, Couture, Fabrics
These are the three things that would get me excited to buy something I don’t really need.
Fabric: I love the men’s shirt style with flashy fabrics on the inside cuff and collar, paired with a more sedate main fabric. I would pay $20 for a shirt like this in the right fabric.
The fabric choices are just not exciting. Most stores have relatively limited selections, but even at the largest Yaly store, or the fabric mart, or Be Be we didn’t see fabrics that made us say, “oooh, I want something made with that.”
Designs: if you are going based on what they have on hand, the designs are all ready-to-wear styles that are popular with lots of people. Literally, most shops have the same suits on display in the same fabrics. The dresses tend toward what looks good on 20-something thin, flat-chested women. Yaly has 3 stores, and the one they call “couture” is the largest. They had a pair of pants in a really pretty green silk pattern for about $30–which is a pretty good price for silk pants but I’m just not in the market for silk pants. Anyway, these pants had a matching jacket and that was, as Dan said, “like Elton John dumped his wardrobe here.” I do love Elton John, but like the “couture” here made me say in all cases, “this is not Bergdorf Goodman’s”. Be Be had the best selection of styles to look at. There were several dresses I thought were really cute so even though Be Be was by far the most expensive on their opening bids, I might go here if I wanted something made. You can also see all the employees at work in the back.
Hurdle #3: I’m used to seeing and feeling as I shop.
The shoes I think are the best example of this issue. Do you try on shoes to make sure they are comfortable first? I do. I try on like 5 pairs of shoes and then pick the most comfortable and cutest of the batch.
They didn’t have a sample shoe to try on in Dan’s size. Maybe the shoe they made would be the most comfortable shoe ever. We are just not used to buying shoes like that. We are used to trying on several shoes and comparing the cushion and how the fabric breaks.
But what if it was so cheap I couldn’t resist?
If it was a $20 leather sneaker I’d probably go for it. Their opening bid was $50.
I can get a really comfortable pair of all-leather sneakers in the US for $70 (maybe less if I had a few months to shop for them, but for sure $70 from a big name brand known for comfort and style). So when the Hoi An shopkeeper offers Dan $50 for shoes in any color leather, the chance to save $20 (or $30 if I bargain?) is just not a big enough incentive. And I was too tired to see if I could bargain down to $20.
For clothing, do you actually know what looks good on you? Can you pick it off the rack, or from a catalog and know it will be the right basic style? We saw a very happy couple doing their final fitting in the fabric mart. The outfits they had were. . . not the right styles for them. The Hoi An tailors will make anything for you that you request, but they are not going to suggest style changes to fit your body better. You have to know.
Other prices for shopping in Hoi An
Pearls: offered for more than 1 million dong (~USD$40) for a strand I can get at TJMax for $15. If you plan to buy pearls, educate yourself first.
Jade necklace: very long with large beads. Started at 800K dong. I bought for 300K dong. I probably could have gotten it for less, and that means she started at way more than double the price.
Cinnamon bark canisters: opening bids 100K dong medium size and 50K dong small. I offered 60K dong for 2 small and the seller would not take it (but went as far as 70K dong for 2 small)
See the prices for items on our Hanoi shopping page, where we did way more shopping. I also recommend you shop online for items to see how much the locals pay. Then take a screenshot of that fake North Face backpack so you can show them what your top price is.
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